Four Minutes Can Change the World
by PurpleRosePhoenix
Summary: Rogue is shown a horrific future and told that it can be changed by a strange woman. Over 25 years in the past, Logan is waylaid by four minutes and a single event changes the world as we know it. This is a Logan/Rogue father/daughter fic, cause there aren't enough out there. Better summary inside.


**Four Minutes Change the World**

**Chapter One**

**To The Future and Back**

**Summary: **A strange woman who can see and manipulate Time and timelines shows Rogue a horrific future that happens because of a choice she made. Telling Rogue that one moment in time can be changed that will change the future of the entire world she asks if Rogue will help her. Giving up her life for a better future and to save the lives of hundreds of Mutants is a small price to pay. Over 25 years in the past, Logan is stopped by a strange woman. Watch how four minutes can change the world.

This is a Wolverine/Rogue father/daughter fic because there are so totally not enough of them out there and I believe that's how they are in the movie.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own X-Men, Marvel or any of the characters in this story except the ones you don't recognize.

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The silence of the room was broken by a cry torn from the throat of the young woman sleeping in it. She shot into a sitting position and began taking several gulps of air. Groping for the switch on her lamp, Rogue breathed a sigh of relief when it flickered to life. Glancing around her room to assure herself that she was alone and safe. Or as relatively safe as one could be in a dingy little apartment in the area of Brooklyn she lived in. Swinging out of bed, Rogue moved into the main room of the tiny apartment and made her way to the fridge for a bottle of water. In the eight years since she'd taken the Cure she had realized many things. The first being that even with no mutation, no one would ever look at her normally again. Humans hated her for once being a Mutant and the Mutants hated her for taking the Cure. School was an impossibility since technically she had never finished high school, and jobs were rarely kept once her earlier status as a Mutant was revealed.

"Hello Rogue," a woman's voice made Rogue spin around and curse.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded angrily, sweeping her eyes from the tall woman to the door.

"My name is Shift," the woman answered with a smile. "Don't worry; your apartment is perfectly secure. I came in a different way."

"You're a mutant," Rogue surmised as she checked the locks on the door and moved to the windows. They were all still as secure as the day she'd come back and found new, better locks on them.

"And so are you," Shift pointed out, ignoring Rogue's raised eyebrow. "This is a nice place. You wouldn't expect to see an apartment here looking this nice. Or as nicely taken care of."

Rogue didn't comment, though she did glance around the apartment. It hadn't always looked as nice. The walls, which were now a pale blue had once been an old grey and peeling. The windows had been completely replaced at some point with thicker glass and better frames and locks. The furniture, while second-hand, was well-kept and clean. And the appliances in her kitchen gleamed just as silver as the day they'd arrived. Everyone and anyone who knew her now questioned her apartment when they saw it. Rogue never told them how it happened. How exactly did you explain to people that a man you hadn't talked to in nearly 8 years still made good on his promise to take care of you? The few friends she had would no doubt worry about that, perhaps even more if they found out that he was a mutant. But Rogue knew with certainty that without Logan fixing up her apartment, sending her furniture and taking care of the rent she couldn't pay she would have been living on the streets years ago.

"Your silent protector may call himself Wolverine," Shift commented as she picked up the one photo of Logan in the room. "But he acts much more like a wolf."

Rogue moved closer to Shift and reached out to take the frame from her. It was one of her favorite photographs. It had been taken in a happier time, long before any sort of war had taken away what little childhood she had remaining to her. She'd never found out who had taken the picture but she was glad they had slipped it under her door. It had been a sunny day during the summer when most of the students had left the Mansion to return home for a few months. Only a handful had remained behind. Logan had taught her how to throw a punch properly that day. They'd been out on the lawn and the picture had been snapped just as Logan had tugged on one of her white stripes. The look of adoration Rogue sported as she looked up at him made her smile now when she remembered the hero-worship she had for him back then. And if you looked closely, in the background you could see Professor Xavier, Scott Summer, Jean Grey and Ororo Munroe on the patio of the Mansion. Two weeks later, school had begun again and Logan had left. When he'd returned over a year later everything had been different and then the war had begun.

"So you've successfully managed to get into my apartment and you know who I am," Rogue said, trying to sound disinterested. "Should I be impressed?"

"Not particularly," Shift said with a smile. "You should be worried though. I'm about to show you something that you won't like at all."

"What are you talking about?" Rogue asked, stepping back as Shift moved forward with her hands extended.

"Just relax," she instructed, grabbing Rogue's arms and holding them with a vice grip that Rogue couldn't get out of. "This is going to feel odd for you."

Rogue opened her mouth to protest and tried to pull her arms away from the woman, but she suddenly felt herself pulled into what felt like a tube of compressed air as everything blurred around her. Her stomach rolled with nausea and her lungs screamed for air as she tried to breathe. Then it was over and the strange woman, Shift, was holding her hair back as Rogue vomited up her dinner.

"I am sorry about that," Shift said as she rubbed Rogue's back. "But I need your help and this is the only way to get it."

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Rogue demanded as she spit a few times. Standing up she gasped as she realized that they were no longer in her apartment. "And where the hell are we?"

"Look around," Shift murmured, motioning to the room they were in. Rogue did just that, realizing that it had once been a bedroom of some kind. Then, a slightly sick felling welled up in her stomach. Not, this wasn't just a bedroom; this was a bedroom in the Mansion. Except it was obviously abandoned, the windows were broken and the door hung off its hinges. She took a step towards the door and stopped when she kicked something. Reaching down she stifled a gasp as she stared at a picture of herself.

"This is Logan's room," she choked out finally, turning to Shift. "What happened? And where is everyone?"

"Gone," Shift said. "Everyone is gone. And this is what will happen in four years time. A war between Humans and Mutants even bigger and nastier than the last one. Mutants will be almost completely eradicated; those that survive are held by the government in secure facilities. Your friend Logan is in one up in Canada."

"Where am I?" Rogue asked, brushing the broken glass of the picture and feeling a wave of affection for the man who had kept a picture of her for so long.

"Dead," Shift stated bluntly. "You refused to listen to Logan when he finally came to you and tried to get you to leave America. Not that it would have done much difference. The War spread to Europe and Asia fast enough. You were rounded up with others who were registered as Cure patients. They placed you in Camps."

"So you've brought me to the future?" Rogue asked as she looked around. "Why?"

"So that I can send you to the past," Shift explained as she sat on the bed. "I can see time. Everything that could have been, has been, is being, will be, might be, never will be. Anything like that you can think of I can see. I can also go into time lines. I've saved up my energy to do this for many years now. You can save us all."

"How? How can I save us all if I don't have powers anymore?" Rogue demanded, whirling around to glare at Shift. "What's the point in showing me something that I can't change?"

"But you can," Shift exclaimed, rising to stand in front of Rogue. "With my help you can. Because I can manipulate time lines, but only my own easily. I need permission to change other people's and I need their help to go back as far as I wish to go back for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't remember, but you met Logan many years before you met him the first time," Shift said. "You were three years old, nearly four, and if he had arrived just a few minutes later than he did your life would have been very different."

"Different?" Rogue asked uncertainly as she glanced down at the photo. "I don't remember that."

"Your father had taken you and your mother to New Orléans," Shift explained. "You slipped away from them and when your father found you he was angry. Logan stopped him from hitting you. Your father never told your mother and he always made sure to keep his temper in check. If Logan had arrived 4 minutes later, he would have found your father beating you and your mother completely convinced that you were possessed. All because of a mutation you couldn't control."

"You want this to happen?" Rogue asked in horror, her stomach rolling with the knowledge that her parents could be that cruel. "You want my parents to do that to me?"

"I never want anyone to go through that kind of pain," Shift murmured. "But the results of that day will change the fate of this world. Humans and Mutants will never coexist completely peacefully. But in time they will learn to live with each other. And you will live to see it Rogue. Help me change the world. Help me save hundreds of innocent people."

"How do you change it?" Rogue asked, hesitantly sitting down on the bed. "How does this work?"

"I need your energy," Shift said. "It will help direct me to your timeline and then I'll find that moment in time where Logan stopped your father from hitting you and change it. And this timeline will cease to exist."

"How are you going to stop Logan from stopping my father?" Rogue asked. "And what will happen to me after that? You said my mutation will kick in at that moment, and my parents hate mutants more than anything."

"Does it matter?" Shift asked with a raised eyebrow. "You'll no longer exist as you do now. None of this will have happened. Time will be rewritten. But you'll be happy, I can tell you that. Happy and loved and not scared of your mutation."

"That's all you're going to tell me, isn't it?" Rogue said after a long pause. "You show me this and say it's all about me and now you're going to essentially kill me and for all I know this is an illusion and you just want to kill me. This could be fake, you could be lying."

"Or I could be telling the truth," Shift pointed out. "What is your choice?"

"Okay," Rogue said finally and she say Shift smile and move towards her, hands outstretched. It suddenly occurred to Rogue that despite nearly 40 minutes with the woman, and that she was looking straight at her, she could not see what she looked like or remember anything about her. She looked down at the picture of herself and Logan that had been left in the room and smiled. Then everything went black.

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Author's Note: I posted the original story called "Shifting Through Time" on The Wolverine and Rogue Archives as QueenMegg91 back in 2009. This is a complete rewrite of that one chapter that I posted. Read and Review! Positive and Negative are always appreciated to help me improve!


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